Competition in the Digital Age
Epiphany plays an outsized role in the reductionist two-step model of invention. Step one is when an idea pops into an inventor’s head, and step two is when the invention spreads in an economy over time. This model is misleading in numerous ways that would take a book to enumerate. Today’s column focuses on step …
Continue reading "Spillovers, Bottlenecks, and More Invention After Invention"
It is that time of year again: Time to look back at information technology in 2024 and make light of it. As with prior year-in-reviews, this one will be arranged like an award ceremony. There are three criteria for the dozen awards given out this year:• The award must be for something involving digital technology.• …
It is time to review the year in digital technology. Oh, what fun! As with prior reviews, we will arrange this review like an award ceremony. There are three criteria for an award: It must involve digital technology. The key event must have taken place this year, 2023. And it must lend itself to sass …
Crypto crashed, Musk mauled Twitter, and Messi made a deep fake mess. Every one of them deserves an award and ridicule. It is time for the digital awards of 2022.
How did the deployment and uptake of the Internet bring about growth in the US economy? That is a fundamental economic question that still resonates today, because many of these events yielded lessons that we can take to the present. The topic is hard to address because many participants experienced these events in different ways. …
Continue reading "Twenty Years of the Commercial Internet (Part 2)"
Last year Steve Levy wrote "The Definitive Story of Information Wants to be Free." It is an interesting reflection on that phrase and its origins. The exact quote arose in a conversation between Stewart Brand and Steve Wosniak at the first hackers conference in 1984 and was recorded by Levy as this: On the one hand …
Continue reading ""Information Wants to be Free": The history of that quote"
Digitopoly 